Granted, what? You are confusing the hell out of me.

He's still trying to "surprise". Not giving people what they want but what he THINKS they want.

How about a really solid by-the-numbers Ocarina clone with maximum production value.

He already made that. It was called Twilight Princess and look how that sold. It's a dead end, not worth pursuing.

Giving gamers "what they want" typically results in crappy games that are made to tick the boxes (aka "by-the-numbers") rather than to be engaging. New Super Mario Bros U was a by-the-numbers NSMB Wii clone with higher production value. It was rejected by comparison with NSMB Wii.

Gamers NEED the 'surprise' element, even though few will admit it. The day that Nintendo and its top-level employees like Miyamoto, Aonuma, etc, stop trying to surprise and to anticipate what people don't realise they want, is the day that Nintendo dies.

Don't get me wrong - a new game taking its cues from Ocarina would be great... but it would need its own twist, its own variation.

Hundreds of times, huh? Although that doesn't mean anything anymore now that I've learned that you have Asperger.

Anyway, OoT as a blueprint is the way to go for 3D Zelda. It's what most people want. No wolves or other gimmicky gameplay, need to improve the core gameplay though. Since one-on-one combat works better in the chosen perspective, there should be more emphasis on the shield. Blocking and stunning for both Link and the enemy, so not just holding up the shield with a button press, but an additional bash move for the shield. Twilight Princess sort of had that already, but it wasn't used much. The implementation in Skyward Sword was questionable, because some idiot decided that shields had to break.

Overworld needs to be filled with more areas of interest. Bosses should be more like an actual fight, rather than a puzzle. Overall, there need to be more enemies that put up a fight, because that in turn makes upgrades valuable.

Wait, what? Twilight Princess sold nearly as well as Ocarina, and that's if you ignore the GC version. Including the GC version, it outsold Ocarina by more than a million copies. The Wii version was the second-best-selling Zelda of all time, and the best-selling in Europe.

Doubt he can go beyond my expectations, which atm is the E3 demo, and I don't think they will top that.

ALBW from what I've played so far, is a big step in the right direction for the series. I'm pretty pumped for the next Zelda after being moderately disappointed in skyward sword.

EDIT: Honestly though, if Eiji screws up this one, I think the series should be given to someone else. He's had his fun experimenting, but he has made some poor games by Zelda standards. Time to return to form.